Rolls of absorbent paper, tissue or nonwoven material, for e.g. wiping purposes, are often mounted in a dispenser, from which sheets of web of the absorbent paper, tissue or nonwoven material may be dispensed by a user at a dispensing end of the absorbent paper, tissue or nonwoven material. The web of absorbent paper, tissue or nonwoven material on the roll may be provided with perforations or may be without perforations. Any perforations are designed to facilitate separating a sheet from the web but this normally results in the material breaking at every perforation. The user sometimes needs a long section of web and sometimes a short section of web.
A dispenser has a dispensing opening, or dispensing passage, through which the web of absorbent paper, tissue or nonwoven material is dispensed. In some types of dispensers, a user grasps and pulls on a dispensing end of the web from the roll to feed out a desired amount of web from the dispenser. In other types of dispensers a user operates a handle to feed out a desired amount of web from the dispenser. Often the dispensing opening or dispensing passage of a dispenser is provided with some kind of arrangement for facilitating tearing off of the web, such as serrated edge. The arrangement for facilitating tearing off may be utilized for non-perforated as well as perforated web.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,526,973 discloses a flexible sheet dispenser for sequentially dispensing web material from a primary web roll and a reserve web roll. The dispenser has a feed nip defined by two feed rollers, which rollers are adapted for achieving the sequential dispensing from the two rolls. The feed rollers are provided with spaced grooves between annular ribs. One of the feed rollers is movably arranged. When web is present in the feed nip, the rollers are separated to define the feed nip. In the feed nip the web material is flat. When no web is present, the feed nip is closed by the grooves and ribs of the feed rollers intermesh as the movable feed roller has moved towards the other feed roller to signal that no web is left on the stub roll is left, and automatic change of roll to dispense web from will occur.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,168,653 discloses a wall mounted dispenser wherein a roll of sheet material is arranged above a drive roller to be biased by means of gravity towards and against a drive roller of a feeding mechanism. The drive roller and an idle roller cooperate to form a pressure nip. The drive roller is rotated by a handle to pull on sheet material threaded into the pressure nip. The handle has to be operated one or more times to feed out a desired amount of sheet material. A blade is provided for separating fed out sheet material from the roll.